Today, President of Latvia Egils Levits met with Alvis Hermanis, Artistic Director of the New Riga Theatre. Meeting focused on freedom of expression guaranteed by the Latvian constitution, Satversme, and international human rights treaties in the general political sense and context of artistic freedom. President and Artistic Director of the New Riga Theatre also discussed culture sector crisis support provided by the state and return of the Theatre to 25 Lāčplēša Street building.
Alvis Hermanis commented on the culture and scope of the current public debate, raising his concerns about the risk of political correctness overwhelming pluralism in Latvia. ‘If we lose free speech, we will eventually lose our freedom,’ said Hermanis.
President Levits underlined that freedom of speech is guaranteed by Article 100 of the Constitution. Artistic freedom is part of freedom of speech and plays vital role in the democracy. ‘Democracy thrives on free exchange of information and views. Freedom of artistic expression, which may include provocative, irritating and even disturbing messages, portrayals and means of expression, is part of freedom of speech and its boundaries should be as broad as possible. Moreover, boundaries of artistic freedom should be much broader than those of free speech,’ said Egils Levits.
He also raised his concerns about repeated deleting of some comments in social media. Without going into detail, President Levits mentioned that social network algorithms or some unknown, anonymous persons should not be allowed to decide on how to restrict the freedom of speech guaranteed by Satversme. Such restrictions, or boundaries, can only be defined by democratically elected officials through laws, and it is up to courts to decide whether these boundaries have been overstepped.
Egils Levits admitted that freedom of speech in digital domain is a very challenging issue. While individual states can find efficient ways to regulate it, European level legislation would be a much more efficient option. Latvian officials should take active part in developing common EU regulations for preventing restrictions on free speech to also limit hate speech and abuse of social platforms to spread the disinformation.
Alvis Hermanis also presented the plans of the New Riga for the nearest future, director’s creative plans and work with students. He also informed about the reconstruction of historic home of the Theatre on 25 Lāčplēša Street and state support it has received during the COVID-19 pandemic.